RPS wants capital city in Rayalaseema region

Rayalaseema Parirakshana Samiti (RPS) president Byreddy Rajasekhara Reddy on Saturday launched a scathing attack against all prominent leaders from the Rayalaseema region.

Speaking at a public meeting at Anantapur, close to the Clock Tower, he asked the Union government to take a categorical decision and form the capital of the ‘residuary’ State of Andhra Pradesh in the Rayalaseema region.

He said that a capital city was the least that could be given to the Rayalaseema region, which had lost out in every other way - be it employment, water for irrigation and drinking needs, development or infrastructure - if the Union government had the slightest of inclination to do justice to the people of the Rayalaseema region.

TDP, YSRC flayed

He accused the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president Nara Chandrababu Naidu and Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy and the YSR Congress president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy of having sold the pride of Rayalaseema at the altar of politics and power and alleged that all these leaders were either busy buying lands in the coastal region hoping that a capital city will come up there or were busy in political permutations and combinations to garner power in the next elections.

“Did none of them feel the need to demand a capital city in the Rayalaseema region, still trying to fool the people that they would be able to stall the division of the State, eventually losing out on at least a fair deal for Rayalaseema,” he said adding that no government in the past nor in the present -- whether or not headed by a Chief Minister from Rayalaseema region, did little for the development of the region.

He also demanded that in the event of bifurcation of the State, the borders of the ‘residuary’ State of should be as they were prior to the formation of Andhra Pradesh with the inclusion of Telangana in 1956.

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Workers carryingout repairs to Visakhapatnam District Collector's Office, as it was damaged in Cyclone Hudhud in 2014 October. The majestic heritage building was designed and built by Dutch engineering company Gannon Dunkerly in 1865 and completed by 1914. Photos: C.V. Subrahmanyam